Author's Note:
This is a re-write of a somewhat shorter version of a paper
which was presented at the Popular Culture Association of
America's Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, April 9,
1998. The original was geared for a more general audience
than the average Whoosh! reader. Please pardon
the basic information with which you are already
familiar.

Xena: Warrior Princess, The Lesbian Gaze, And The Construction Of A Feminist Heroine

[1] I was introduced to Xena: Warrior
Princess (XWP) by my then eight-year-old daughter,
and almost immediately became an obsessive fan. I quickly
learned, however, that XWP is a popular culture phenomenon,
appealing to a wide range of fans across a demographic
spectrum. XWP has a tremendous presence on the World Wide
Web, with countless fan pages featuring images, sounds,
articles, and fan fiction. There are several XWP news groups
and mailing lists, and, of course, our own WHOOSH. But XWP
has been particularly embraced by lesbian fans, who applaud
the heroine's kick-*ss attitude, spectacular good looks,
feminism, and the unmistakable lesbian subtext in her
relationship with her sidekick, Gabrielle (Renee
O'Connor).

[2] XWP is a spin-off from its companion series,
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, in which Xena
(Lucy Lawless) originally appeared as a ruthless warlord
leading a pillaging army. Over the course of three episodes,
she reconsidered and decided to devote her life to doing
good and atoning for the sins of her past. As her own series
began, she acquired a sidekick, Gabrielle, who was a bard
and became an Amazon princess. Xena and Gabrielle roamed the
countryside, protecting the weak, fighting evil warlords,
having confrontations with annoying Olympian gods, and
working on their relationship, which they defined in terms
of "best friends" and "family", but which many fans see as
that of lovers.

[3] Lesbian viewers applaud a series in which a
powerful, intimate, and loving relationship between two
women is celebrated, can identify with Xena kicking the bad
guys' collective behind, and can lust over actress Lucy
Lawless' marvelous physique all at once. While some feminist
viewers complain about the ways in which Xena is
objectified, Lucy Lawless is hardly the waif-thin, passive,
feminine ideal. Unlike some other female warrior vehicles,
most notably the Alien series and the
Terminator films [Note
01], where the female
hero becomes both masculinized and monstrous in her pursuit
of her goals, XWP embodies a much more satisfying feminist
message.

[4] Is Xena a sex object? Her costume and armor
certainly reveal much more than they protect. In an essay
entitled, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Laura
Mulvey argued that films typically reenact male domination
of women by objectifying the heroine. Mulvey wants to
destroy "the erotic pleasure in film"
[Note 02], which she defines in terms of
voyeurism, sadism, and "the fetishistic representation of
the female image" [Note 03]. The male viewer, according to her
thesis, identifies with the "omnipotence" of the male
protagonist and the "active power of the erotic look"
[Note 04]. In a later essay, "Afterthoughts
on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'", Mulvey addressed
the female spectator, arguing that she oscillated between a
"transvestite" [Note 05] masculinization (in identifying
with the male hero) and "passive femininity" [Note 06].

[5] Mulvey's argument, although reductionist,
accurately described certain features of traditional films.
However, at the same time, in associating power exclusively
with males and passivity exclusively with females, she
recapitulated the binary gender roles she was attempting to
deconstruct. She does not seem to fathom that a man can
serve as a sex object, or that a woman can lustfully gaze at
a man on screen. If she gazes at a woman in such a fashion,
according to Mulvey, she does so by identifying with a
masculine perspective.

[6] Furthermore, Mulvey's condemnation of
scopophilia [Note 07] and her split between the
"active/male" subject who gazes and "passive/female" object
of the gaze [Note 08] have already been critiqued by her
peers.

[7] In context of this paper, the character Xena
certainly appeals to the pleasure in looking, yet she is
hardly a passive object. Mulvey argues that, for a male
spectator, "a male movie star's glamorous characteristics
are thus, not those of the erotic object of the gaze, but
those of the more perfect, more complete ideal ego" because
"the character can make things happen and control events
better than the subject/spectator"
[Note 09].

[8] Why cannot a female hero serve such a
function for a female spectator? Paula Graham posits a
"lesbian subjective space" in which "the female warrior is
sexually objectified, but also identified with as 'phallic'
(desiring) subject" [Note
10]. There is, thus, "an
identification with and desire for the masculinized female
body", a space in which "both protagonist and spectator
occupy 'phallic' positions in the relay"
[Note 11].

[9] But what if the active protagonist's body is
not masculinized? It can be argued that a lesbian spectator
need not desire or identify with Xena from a transvestised
masculine subject position, but rather from a lesbian one.
It is possible that the lesbian gaze encompasses both an
appreciation of Xena's stunning physique and an
identification with her strength and power.

[10] Xena offers a lesbian spectator what Graham
described as "the elements of powerful agency located in the
pleasures of bodily action" [Note
12]. The opening credits
sequence of the series reveals this conjunction between
Xena's status as a sex object and her abilities as a
warrior. The sequence alternates between a loving camera
tilt up Xena's body as she adjusts her armor, and scenes of
Xena in battle.

[11] Donna Minkowitz argued that "Many women fans
somehow manage to bring together an appreciation for Xena's
feminism with an appreciation for her body", and also notes,
as many others have, that the star of Xena's companion
series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,
"displays his body just as much as Lawless does" [Note 13]. Hercules' Kevin
Sorbo wears tight leather pants and a sleeveless, open
shirt, and several episodes reveal the camera slowly panning
his chest and arms, even zooming in on his Adam's apple as
he swigs a long drink.

[12] XWP also has a lesbian producer, Liz
Friedman, who makes very clear that she sees Xena as a
lesbian's dream date. She told The Advocate she
would date Xena "in a heartbeat", explaining, "Xena's
perfect! She's tough, smart, funny, and good with a sword"
[Note 14].

[13] Lorraine Gamman cites "the pornographic
scenario of fetishised male fantasies about women in
leather" [Note 15], but do lesbians not have such
fantasies themselves? Xena's costume may well appeal to
those with a leather fetish, but XWP subversively comments
on Xena's sex appeal, deflecting any possibility of viewing
her merely as a sex object. In a scene from the episode,
A DAY IN THE LIFE (39/215), Xena and Gabrielle
make fun of a young man, Hower, who has developed a
puppy-like crush on Xena at first sight.

G: Another one's fallen for you.
X: Again? Why does this always happen?
G: It's the blue eyes, the leather. Some guys just love leather.
X: I think a wardrobe change is in order.
G: You could wear chain mail.
X: Yeah, but I think that'd just attract a kinkier group.
G: You're probably right.
[They both laugh]
X: On the other hand, I could just stop bathing and wear a smelly
wolfskin. That'd turn them off.
G: That's true. Of course you'd also be traveling alone.

[14] Xena is anything but flattered by Hower's
attention. She is both amused and annoyed by it. Of course,
Xena's costume is intended to catch the viewer's eye, but
Xena and Gabrielle's conversation in this scene points to
the error of equating the character with her leather-clad
surface.

[15] Hower is revealed to be a fool who refuses
to accept Xena's blunt rejection ("Ya got a snowball's
chance in Tartarus with me," says Xena) and who lustfully
returns to his girlfriend, Minya, once she adopts a version
of Xena's leather costume and punches out a burly
warlord.

[16] As Donna Minkowitz's profile of the series
in Ms. magazine revealed, Xena is a
satisfyingly feminist heroine. Of course, there are as many
definitions of feminism as there are feminists, but to many,
what makes Xena stand out in contrast to other action
heroines is the fact that her gender is simply not an issue.
While the series usually makes clear that Xena and Gabrielle
do not need men, it portrays Xena as neither a victim of nor
as inherently superior to men.

[17] As producer Liz Friedman states, "Xena
doesn't apologize ... She doesn't accept that being a woman
is a disadvantage in this world" [Note
16].

[18] The opening sequence describes Xena as a
"hero", not a heroine. It is never questioned on the series
whether a woman can be a warrior. Xena is the favorite of
Ares, the god of war, and she receives the undivided respect
of both her enemies and those she protects. Xena's most
feared enemy, Callisto, is also a woman, who has no trouble
recruiting armies of followers. Several episodes feature the
Amazons, who taught Gabrielle to fight with a staff. In the
Xenaverse, it is simply taken for granted that a woman can
be a hero and a warrior, and can single-handedly defeat an
entire group of armed fighters.

[19] Like any fantasy hero, Xena is infinitely
resourceful. She does gravity-defying flips, she's an
accomplished horsewoman, she is skilled in medicine, she can
interrogate enemies with a potentially fatal nerve pinch,
she can catch an arrow in mid-flight, and she has a variety
of weapons at her disposal: a bullwhip, a sword, and her
signature weapon, a chakram, a razor-sharp flying disk. As
fan Kevin Wald's Gilbert and Sullivan-style "Xena Operetta"
put it:

My armory is brazen, but my weapons are ironical;
My sword is rather phallic, but my chakram's rather yonical.

[20] Xena may have appropriated "phallic" power
if we assume that power is exclusively a phallic property,
but she is an equal-opportunity warrior, battling male and
female foes with equal relish and competence. She is strong
enough to knock out enemies with single blows and inventive
enough to create a kite to channel lightning to kill a giant
[A DAY IN THE LIFE (39/215)].